I feel like a huge weight has been removed from my chest and throat. Tension I didn’t even know I was carrying has lessened enough to for me to feel lighter. And yet, I kind of feel like my date with Harold yesterday was not fully successful because we didn’t have sex.

Thing is, we decided to dedicate the afternoon to letting me talk through some of the last awful bits of my childhood abuse. We’ve made to the very darkest recesses of my psyche, but it’s by far the hardest. I’ve been doing my best to avoid dealing with it at all. Truthfully, I don’t have to do this work, but I want to be fully myself and fully as powerful as I can be. I don’t want to be wasting my energy coping, when I can just do the work and come to accommodation with my past. The abuse will always be a part of where I come from. It doesn’t have to be who I am.

So, with some trepidation, Harold and I had our date. We started by taking a long bath – talking and relaxing. Then we moved to the bed where Harold brought me to orgasm with his tongue and fingers. I was really getting off on the pain of having my nipples pinched. I wanted it harder and harder. After I finished coming, held tight in his arms, we could have fucked. But we didn’t. I just wasn’t feeling it.

Instead, I started talking. And crying. I think I cried for three hours straight. Maybe four hours. Harold just held the space, held me. I looked at some of the things that I’ve feared too much to bring into the light. I let go of all of my careful control. I let myself really feel all of the sadness and some of the anger. I went through nearly a whole box of tissues. Harold let me know how much I am loved.

I have an old deep fear of not being believed, of being thought crazy. Harold made it clear that he would love me even if I was totally crazy. He not only believes me, but is willing to walk through hell with me, step by step. He met every fear with support and slowly together we bridged the abyss. Eventually we emerged into the evening, tear-stained, snot-smeared warriors.

I wanted to make love on kind of an intellectual level, but I had to follow my instincts. I just wasn’t there. My love for Harold wanted to make him happy. I probably could have worked myself around to sex, but I gave myself some time off. Harold and I have never had to talk ourselves into sex. We will have more time, but letting myself feel this pain is a rare and hopefully short-lived occurrence. We will make love when everything flows. When the time is right. And I don’t have to make anything right by Harold.

What we did instead, was get into the shower. At first, I couldn’t. I was still so strongly in my past that flashbacks overwhelmed me. Then I stood in shower, hot spray hitting my chest, breasts, and belly, while tears continued to flow down my cheeks. I felt emptied, vacant without the knot of emotion in my core. My heart beat hard and fast against my chest, like a bird trapped in a cage. I could hear myself breathe. I looked up at Harold and said, “I don’t want this. I don’t want this to be my story. I don’t want this to be who I am.”

He wrapped his arms around me and spoke earnestly against my ear, “What you went through is a part of you. It’s where you’ve been. You need it, it’s important. But it doesn’t define you. You need to keep speaking it, because if you don’t give it words, it will keep haunting you. Don’t be afraid to tell it. Speak it over and over, until it isn’t the story of who you are, just part of your backstory.”

He’s right. Words have the power to define thoughts and concepts. If I can define something, I can own it. The vague, fearful things that used to lurk in my basement can’t hurt me any more if I can speak them. I will own them – mine, not anyone else’s. This is the power of speaking my story.